DVCS strategies for mixed-role small team?

Question

I've done a lot of reading, and have been trialing GIT, GIT Tortoise, Tortoise SVN and PlasticSCM, to find the right source control for our small team (5-10 users).

Some background on our team: 6 copy writers/editors (2 remote), 2 developers, 2 graphic designers. We are not always working on projects together, sometimes up to 5 of us might be working on a given project. I'm unconcerned about the developers with DVCS, my concern is mainly around the other roles who are (in the nicest way) limited in their technical capability. Some of our copy writers update multiple source files (HTML, PDFs and adding concept graphics) to live, unversioned build directories (backed up as build.23.06.11.new.new.final.zip!). The copy and GD team will not have time, or to be brutally honest, the inclination to merge/resolve conflicts, or probably even remember to switch branches.

A few SO questions have shed light on what what seems to be a fairly consistent approach - main trunk (no junk in the trunk!) with teams having their own branches, and having release branches etc.

Every time I've re-read the links...

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3854583/version-control-system-for-small-in-house-team
• Getting started with Version Control
• http://svn-ref.assembla.com/subversion-how-tos.html

...and google in general, I still end up asking myself the same questions:

1. Is it a Bad Idea to create role-specific branches for "trouble points" (copy team), where they can push to the repo, then our developers will merge their work into the actual project branch?
2. Should I still try to enforce a task-per-branch for everyone else?
3. Should I do task-per-branch for everyone but let the copy team create very broad tasks?
4. Is there usually a team/group/person who is considered an "admin" role for a repo who does crucial merges?
5. (is there an alternative suggested workflow where copy writers don't touch source?)

Unfortunately, the copy teams play a vital role in updating files which in turn affect layouts and all sorts of things, on a continual basis during dev. Its not like I can keep them in a bubble until the end of a project and chuck their work in.

... the good news is that hopefully, after a number of years, I'm ready to force everyone to move to version control! We've also settled on PlasticSCM for its intuitive GUI and Windows integration.

The best answer to this question would try to answer the 4 points above - tackle point 5 if you like - explain weak points if possible, and provide advice, gotchyas, etc.

cheers!

Answer 1

So basically you want to know how to get team-member of different skill-levels to use SCM and play nice with each other.

Buy-in from your team is priority #1. If you can't make them learn it, then you're left with providing a path of least resistance. So you really need to be flexible. There might be a wrong-way and a right-way to use the tool, but if the users won't accept the right-way, then the wrong-way is better than them not using it at all. How you achieve this balance is going to be different for every team.

Is it a Bad Idea to create role-specific branches for "trouble points" (copy team), where they can push to the repo, then our developers will merge their work into the actual project branch?

No, maybe its not optimal, but if this makes it easy for the Copy Team, then thats what you're left with. You could probably go even further and setup each user with their own branch. Then they never have to worry about merging other peoples changes.

Should I still try to enforce a task-per-branch for everyone else?

Each dev should have a unique "local" branch, that is not tracking an upstream branch. For example, use something generic like mydev. This makes it easy for them to switch between their local code and the current upstream branch.

You don't necessarily need to force everyone to create a local branch for every task, cause in the end, you're going to want them just to rebase their working branch onto the upstream one, and commit so it just becomes a fast-forward (i.e. linear commit).

Now for tasks that multiple devs are working on, or it is a feature that involves groups of smaller commits, then yes it does make sense to force them to create a new specific task branch. When they merge they can make sure to force a merge-commit, then it is clear that a set of commits are grouped together and all were part of a specific task. The merge commit will display like merged branch feature-X.

Should I do task-per-branch for everyone but let the copy team create very broad tasks?

It's really up to how much buy-in you can get from the Copy Team. I think if they really get confused with the DVCS tools, then you have to scale back until you can find something that does not cause too much of an impact.

One solution, is to have one of your devs help integrate the Copy Teams changes into another branch that everyone else will look at. That will help offload the learning-curve of the tool onto someone outside of the Copy Team.

Is there usually a team/group/person who is considered an "admin" role for a repo who does crucial merges?

Yes, this makes sense. However the great thing about SCM, is that everyone will be able to go back and do a code review on a merge. So if a merge breaks the code, you can either append the corrections after the merge, or remove the merge, and do it over.

(is there an alternative suggested workflow where copy writers don't touch source?)

Well, one possible technique is the Integration Manager model. The developers commit changes to their own share repos, but its up to the integration manger, to merge in the changes to the blessed repository.

I'm sure there are other methods that might work for your users, but this question is slightly ambiguous.